Book Review: The Story of Mustard
"The Story of Mustard", a short story written by TA forums member Yeopus, is a sorded tale of betryal, passion and politically-affiliated condiments. Written in the year 2005, it stands, to this very day, as an eternal reminder of the dangers of over-moderation and of the insatiable spirit of free speech.
Set in "the land of trance", an allegorical fairy-tale world of folklore and tyrants, "The Story of Mustard" begins with the young peasant boy, "Yeop", awakening to find that his vast fields of mustard deposits have been stolen overnight by the ruler of his lands, known simply in the text as "Swamp". Yeop's peaceful Zionistic utopia, the village of "Political Forum", is uprooted as realisations of the previous night's injustices begin to set into the young boy's mind. Where he would have otherwise awoken to the "glee" of being able to bask in the glory of his mustard, he instead awakes to find himself forced into a quixotic quest to reclaim that which has been unduly stolen from him.
Yeop, quite a mild-mannered and amicable boy normally, is driven to cries of revolution as the circumstances of the crime become apparent:
| quote: | | One day the Yoep awoke as he did everyday to his quiet and peaceful village expecting to see his mustard in its awesome glee. But on this day it was different; the mustard had flee! Where did it go? Why was it gone? He pleaded to hollow ears. "Justice must be brought!" "Freedom must ring!", "Ban a mod!" he cried and plead. |
His outrage here is directed at the proclomation issued by Swamp (in a foreign tongue, not properly understood by Yeop) which read "No Political/religion related commentary/imagery [in your signature]". Yeop, being a farmer of mustard grown from the seeds of aggressive, right-wing Isreali foreign-policy, soon finds himself at the center of a conspiracy, the likes have which have rarely been so terrifyingly conveyed in English prose. Like Cervantes' protagonist, Yeop steels himself to battle the imminent threat despite the incredulity and bemusement of the other villagers:
| quote: | | The villagers did not listen. |
Soon, however, as Swamp's tactics become more and more despotic and the villagers began to notice their own politically-affiliated crops (referred to in the text, allegorically, as "signatures") disappearing as well, they begin to rally around Yeop and join in his desire to see justice restored to their land:
| quote: | One by one their signatures did too disappear!
They rallied their mods! "Save mustard"! Why was this evil become to them? |
Swamp's tyranny, however, remains absolute and in a final tragedy lifted straight from the pages of Shakespeare, the story resolves itself with the revelation that the signatures of all the villagers have perished in exile, along with Yeop's beloved mustard, due to Swamp's unquenchable desire for ketchup-related revenue:
| quote: | | So Yoep's mustard lay exiled to die. Living only in memory where a tank once appeared. And all other signatures shared the mustard's same fate... The true reasons of contempt later became clear. The villagers lost their signatures not for rule #5, but since Heinz ketchup had given money to the evil man of the swamp. |
Few mustard-farming related stories have ever left us with such a poignant, tear-jerking reminder of just how much we can take mustard for granted in our bourgeois, condiment-rich societies and of just how evil the ketchup lobby can be if left to it's own anti-Dijonistic devices. The moral of the story is clear: never let them ban mustard again!
Overall, in my opnion, this story is a post-modernistic masterpiece, filled with whimsical imagery, bone-chilling intrigue, heart-warming romance and pant-pissing political allusions. I heartily recommend this work to anyone with an interest in food-dressings and overall would give it 3 and a half stars.
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